Our country's leaders are acting like overprotective parents with extreme security measures and invasions of privacy, writes Tarric Brooker.
IN A RECENT INTERVIEW, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Sky News that part of the reason Labor lost the Election was because they “spoke down” to the Australian people.
Which is rather ironic when you think about it.
While Labor did talk down to the public at times during the Election campaign, in recent months, the Morrison Government has been increasingly treating the Australian people like children.
Here are just a few select examples:
Do you want to organise a boycott of a product you don’t like because it’s within your rights as a private citizen?
The PM is tabling legislation so that would be illegal.
Do you want to watch pornography without the Government watching you?
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has a plan to take your photo using facial recognition software to verify for your age on porn sites, by cross-checking your image with a government database of passport and driver’s licence photos.
Not going to lie, that’s more than a little bit weird.
Are you a Newstart, Austudy or Youth Allowance recipient who wants to protest?
Under a proposal put forward by Peter Dutton, they would be stripped of their welfare payments and be effectively left to become homeless and eventually starve.
In fact, if Dutton were to have his way, there would be mandatory or minimum gaol sentences for some repeat protesters.
Do you want to pay cash for a car or another transaction of more than $10,000?
Under legislation put forward by the Morrison Government, that would be illegal. This move is apparently meant to stop tax avoidance in the black economy.
Which doesn’t really make much sense when you think about it, as why would criminals stop doing criminal things simply because they are now more illegal?
Once upon a time, the Liberal Party was genuinely a political force that valued individual freedom of speech and expression, an organisation that valued civil liberties and the ability of people to live their lives without government interference.
But in recent years, those freedoms have been progressively eroded in the name of national security and the values that many Liberal Party members and supporters hold close to their hearts have been increasingly supplanted by the ideology of the Liberal Party Right.
In a way, the Morrison Government’s approach to speaking to the electorate can be summed up in just three words: “How good is...?”
All direct quotes of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Rather than talking to the public like adults in a meeting of equals to explain complex issues and policies in a way people can understand, the Coalition embraces “small target government”.
It trots out the “Daggy Dad” version of Scott Morrison, to tell the public that we need not worry ourselves about any number of serious issues the nation faces, because the Coalition is absolutely on top of things.
In spite of a growing body of evidence from both economists and the Reserve Bank that the Morrison Government’s tax cuts have failed to meaningfully kickstart growth, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer continue to insist that they are committed to a budget surplus.
The very real concerns of the Australian people about the future prosperity of our nation are being dismissed by the Morrison Government, in the same way a parent would dismiss a child who was worried about something silly, like the sun not rising again tomorrow.
This state of affairs cannot continue forever. Everyone from the big banks to the owner of the local milk bar can see that the Morrison Government must start listening to the concerns of the electorate.
Ultimately, if Scott Morrison continues to pursue his ideological agenda at the expense of the Australian people and Aussie businesses, his days as Prime Minister are well and truly numbered.
Tarric Brooker is a freelance journalist and political commentator.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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